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Oil and Gas: Four lessons for Namibia

April 25, 2022
Oil and Gas: Four lessons for Namibia

Equatorial Guinea, a major African oil and gas producer, has offered Namibia four lessons as the country starts the journey to oil and gas production.

Shell Namibia Upstream B.V, Namcor and Qatar Energy announced the discovery of oil offshore Namibia in February.

TotalEnergies also announced a significant discovery of light oil with associated gas on the Venus prospect in block 2913B of the Orange Basin.

Canadian exploration company, ReconAfrica is also exploring for oil in the Kavango Basin. Namibia has proven gas reserves in the Kudu Gas, which was discovered in the 1970’s.

Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons of Equatorial Guinea, Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima has advised Namibia not to make apologies to anyone about its oil and gas discoveries.

Secondly, Lima advised Namibia to visit other African producers to learn from their successes and failures. Thirdly, Lima says Namibia must develop local content to benefit from the resources. Lastly, Lima warned Namibia to be careful with international consultants and rather use common sense as it becomes an oil and gas producer.

Lima spoke at the recently held Namibia International Energy Conference.

Namibia’s plans to become a gas and oil producer comes at a time when the world is moving towards the so-called energy transition. This is a pathway toward transformation of the global energy sector from fossil-based to zero-carbon by the second half of this century. At its heart is the need to reduce energy-related CO2 emissions to limit climate change.

But NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman of the African Energy Chamber argued that African countries have the right to drill for oil and gas noting that the developed countries have used oil to develop and uplift the lives of their people.

He was backed by Omar Farouk Ibrahim, Secretary General of the African Petroleum Producers Organisation.

“Don’t abandon what God has given us.” Ibrahim noted that the US and Europe, oil producers for many years, have lost the moral right to tell Africa not to produce oil. He argued that Africa’s energy related CO2 emissions are less than 2%. A major revelation during the conference was that the African Export and Import Bank and the African Petroleum Producers Organisation are planning to fund oil projects in Africa.

“If we are going to make Africa’s energy poverty a history, we need to start reimagining ourselves. We need to think differently about our capability. We need to think hard on what needs to be done to ttract the necessary investment in the energy space,” said Minister of Mines and Energy, Tom Alweendo.

Klaus Endresen, General Manager of BW Kudu noted that gas to electricity is important in Africa where only 32% of the rural population has access to electricity. In the urban areas, more than 78% have access to electricity.

Frans Kalenga, minister Alweendo’s technical advisor, said gas is an important part of the energy mix in Africa where more than 600 million people do not have energy. More than 26 countries in Africa have the potential to produce natural gas.

Despite this potential, Lima noted that Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Angola produces and exports gas but there are no terminals in Africa to accept this energy, leading to gas exports to countries like Japan.

Alweendo noted that Namibia has taken a serious decision to invest in renewable energy, especially hydrogen. The government plans to develop the US$9.4 billion green hydrogen project in the south of the country. The green hydrogen project in the Tsau //Khaeb national park is expected to produce 300 000 tons of green hydrogen per year for regional and global markets as pure green hydrogen or as green ammonia. 

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Last modified on Thursday, 28 April 2022 10:31
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